Bus crash kills ten: low-income and first generation students affected by tragedy

A California Highway Patrol Officer looks over the wreckage, Friday, April 11, 2014, where a tour bus and a FedEX truck crashed on Interstate 5 Thursday in Orland, Calif.; Credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

According to authorities, a FedEx tractor-trailer crossed over a freeway median and crashed into a bus carrying a group of high school students on their way to tour Humboldt State University, killing five teenage students and five adults.

The students were on their way to a “Preview Plus” event, part of the university’s Student Academic Services Outreach Program, a program that focuses on increasing the enrollment of low-income and first-generation students.

Nineteen of the students in the three-bus caravan were from schools in the LAUSD. Three of the students were from Pasadena Unified schools.

Guests:

Judy Burton, President and CEO of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a nonprofit charter organization in Los Angeles comprised of 22 free, public charter high schools and middle schools serving 10,000 low-income students.

Lorna Bryant, a former chaperon for the Preview Plus program (also works at KHSU, the college radio station as an admin and host)